Tweaking

Halloween was a wonderful day for every Android-fanboy this time round as it was when Google released the Nexus 5 and along with it Android 4.4 KitKat. Although, for some (Galaxy Nexus owners), it wasn’t as good a day. Google officially announced that it’s Galaxy Nexus (both GSM and Verizon variants) would not receive any Android 4.4 KitKat goodness. To put it in another way, the Galaxy Nexuses will be stuck on Android 4.3 for eternity; ..and then the good Lord said, “let there be XDA”.

According to XDA Developers, the following AOSP ROM is quite stable (it is!) with the exception of a few isolated issues like animation and graphical glitches (did not bother us much) which will be fixed in the upcoming releases.

Pre-requisites to flashing this ROM

Back up data and settings using a recommended custom recovery tool, like ClockworkMod (CWM) or TWRP, as it creates a complete image of the existing phone setup.

Boot the phone into Fastboot mode by pressing and holding Volume Up, Volume Down and Power buttons together.

Once the device reboots, you should see something like this —

Use the Volume up and Volumedown buttons to navigate to the red banner above the opened up Android to say “Recovery mode” and then press the Power button.

In ClockworkMod recovery, perform a full data wipe task by choosing Wipe Data/Factory Reset (use volume buttons to navigate and power button to select the desired option in recovery).

Wait until the wipe process completes and then perform Wipe Cache Partition. Let the process complete and then select Wipe Dalvik Cache from advance option. This will prevent ROM related errors or boot loop issues.

Once the wipe process is done, return to main recovery menu and select Install Zip from SD card.

Then select Choose zip from SD card. Now, locate the Android 4.4 ROM zip file you copied earlier to the phone and select it by tapping Power button. Confirm the ROM installation on next screen and let the installation begin.

Then, repeat the previous step for installing Google Apps as well.

After Google apps is also installed, go back and tap on reboot system now in the recovery menu. The phone will now reboot automatically. The first boot might take about five minutes to complete. So, don’t worry!

Once rebooted, you will be greeted with the Android setup wizard. Set your phone up and enjoy!

Steps involved to get get root access on the 4.4 ROM

Install the Nexus Root Toolkit you downloaded earlier. It will extract certain files so make sure you install in within a folder.

Once installed, you will be asked to select your device. Select Galaxy Nexus GSM/HSPA+ and the select you ROM as Custom ROM – KK. Then, let the toolkit do it’s thing until you’re greeted with the following dialog box.

Under the Root section tick Custom Recovery if it’s un-ticked and then press Root.

From here on, just follow the instructions the pop up on your computer and you’ll be fine.

Once, the process ends, you will an up and running KitKat ROM with root access.

Facebook has relesed their new launcher, Home, available on the Google Play Store. However, it’s currently US-only, and only available on a bunch of devices (for reasons known only to Facebook.)

But if you’re from another part of the world, and want to try it on your device, and it’s not supported yet? Don’t worry. Here’s a small tutorial to help you out. Although, you’ll need to be rooted for it to work.

We live in a monopoly with USA as the super-power.So,it seems fair that Americans have an exclusive app market to purchase or browse content on.But this does not mean we can’t have access to it.A simple proxy does the trick,but the question is,which proxy and whether to pay for one or not?

Paying for a proxy is a stupid idea when there are free alternatives (which do work) out there.We’ll be talking about the most convenient and easy to use proxy in just a second.For now,let’s talk about what one needs to get access to the US playstore.

Install Market Enabler on your phone just like you would install any other .apk file and download and install Hotspot Shield too from the playstore.

Open Market enabler and select a ‘ US ‘ carrier from the second tab (swipe left once).We suggest using us-verizon.Make sure you don’t set it as ‘set on boot’ because that’ll interfere with your calls and/or messages.

Now open up the VPN app and enable it.It’ll take a few seconds only.

Now,go to Settings -> Apps -> All and look for ‘Google Play Store’ and empty it’s cache.

Open up the Playstore and you should see the US Playstore which would look something like this.

For more exciting news regarding the world of technology,check Technologic 101 out on Google+ or on Facebook.

Technologic101 does not condone piracy in any way. This tutorial is only for educational purposes.

Everyone loves YouTube.It’s the best online video database on earth.It simply does not have any competition whatsoever.But,on the flipside,YouTube restricts users from downloading their videos (for obvious reasons)Although,there are other workarounds that one can follow to get download and store their favorite YouTube videos and this tutorial will cover all the steps needed to download Youtube videos and music directly on your Android device!

**This method is just one way to do it.There are other ways to download YouTube videos as well.So,if this doesn’t work,just leave a comment below or google it for yourselves**

Samsung, in all it’s device has a special Flash Counter in it’s kernel which allows them to check how many kernels and recoveries have been flashed on the device via Odin and what was the last thing that you had flashed.
The counters are upto 255, so theoretically you can reset this number by flashing it 256 times. However, resetting this Flash Counter is dangerous as it can even brick your device.
Today’s tutorial will help you to reset the Flash Counter easily and safely via any recovery which is installed on your phone!

Disclaimer: Follow all the instructions carefully mentioned in this article, we should not be held responsible in any manner if your device doesn’t boot up or gets bricked due to not following the instructions.